First points for Muennich Motorsport at the WTCC season opening in Morocco

The racing stable from Saxony scored a seventh place of Gianni Morbidelli in the second race on Sunday evening in Marrakesh.

Friedersdorf/Marrakesh (rol/ot) First points, very good qualifying and a lot of misfortune: The first racing weekend (12th /13th of April) of the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) 2014 in Morocco has been an emotional rollercoaster for the German Team ALL-INKL.COM Muennich Motorsport from Friedersdorf. In the end, the racing stable from Saxony scored a seventh place of Gianni Morbidelli in the second race on Sunday evening in Marrakesh. The new driver from Italy in the Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1 with starting number 10 started from the end of the field like he did in the first race as well, when he finished 15th after an interim pit stop. Team principal René Münnich didn’t cross the finish line in both races in the sister car #77. Winners of the race on the 4.545 km long city course „Circuit Moulay El Hassan“ have been the Argentinian Jose Maria Lopez and the French Sebastien Loeb (both Citroën C-Elysée WTCC).

„The first points for us in this year‘s season of the WTCC are a small consolation. But we could have gathered more points“, team principal and racing stable owner René Münnich said, who caused furore at the qualifying on Saturday with a great sixth place after Q2. „It went great for me in the training, but not in the two races. But the opening showed that we are able to finish in between the top ten, which leaves us optimistic for the upcoming season runs.“

Being on position six at the first race, René Münnich misinterpreted the starting procedure and had a jump start. So he got the penalty to drive through the pit lane once. That happened in the second lap, where he already has been at the end of the field due to technical problems and later on he had to stable car early in the 12th out of 14 laps. „The electronics stopped working“, the team principal explained. He started the second run from position five. After a mass crash right after the start he was lucky to get through without any harm. After the restart behind the Safety Car René Münnich has been on position four, but after the Safety Car left the track in the fifth lap, the front spoiler of his car was damaged by a combatant – that has been the early out.

At the same time Gianni Morbidelli, starting from position 17, has already been in the points ranking on position nine, before he made his way up to position seven and scored the first six championship points of this year for the Team ALL-INKL.COM Muennich Motorsport. The crew from Saxony had to do a nightshift for him, so he could start at all. The Italian collided with his compatriot Gabriele Tarquini (Honda Civic WTCC) in the training and both cars were strongly damaged. Tarquini was not able to drive with his car anymore, but the Muennich team did everything they could to fix Morbidellis Chevrolet. „That has been a huge effort of the whole team that worked until 2 am on Sunday morning. Everyone deserves a great thank you“, team principal René Münnich said.

Already on Monday (14th of April) the cars will be aboard the ship with direction to Barcelona. Then they will go to France by the overland route, because the second season event of the WTCC is scheduled for the Easter weekend (19th/20th of April) in Le Castellet on the race track Paul Ricard.